SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JUNE 12: Security guards stand in front of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on June 12, 2017 in San Francisco, California.

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Eight conservative judges on the federal appeals court in San Francisco, including both of President Trump’s appointees, dissented sharply Wednesday from a ruling that prohibited a public school board from opening its sessions with a prayer.

The case may be headed to the Supreme Court — and one Trump-appointed appellate judge said the high court should reconsider its longtime definition of the barriers between church and state.

In Wednesday’s proceedings, a majority of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request to reconsider a panel’s ruling in July that halted prayers and Bible readings at meetings of the Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County.

While the Supreme Court has allowed state legislatures and city councils to hold public prayers, citing centuries of tradition, the three-judge appellate panel in July said school boards are different because youngsters regularly attend their meetings to receive awards, put on talent shows or simply observe the proceedings.

The Supreme Court in 1962 prohibited public schools from conducting prayer sessions. Unlike prayers at legislative sessions, the appeals court said, a religious invocation at a school board meeting attended by students is not a “solemnizing and unifying prayer, directed at lawmakers themselves and conducted before an audience of mature adults free from coercive pressures to participate.”

In an opinion joined by seven colleagues Wednesday, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain denounced the panel’s decision and said the court should have granted a rehearing.

“The panel bizarrely transforms the board meetings into a ‘school setting,’” O’Scannlain said. School boards exist to “legislate,” not to “educate,” he said, and thus are covered by Supreme Court rulings since 1983 allowing prayers at legislative sessions. He noted that a federal appeals court in New Orleans had allowed school board prayers in another case last year.

“The panel’s opinion is dripping with unrestrained urgency to insulate public school students from any hint of exposure to religion even outside of the classroom,” O’Scannlain said.

The dissenters included both of Trump’s Ninth Circuit appointees, Michael Bennett and Ryan Nelson. In a separate dissent joined by three colleagues, Nelson questioned the Supreme Court’s 1971 ruling that set strict standards for laws and government actions affecting religion: They must have a “secular legislative purpose” and an impact that “neither advances nor inhibits religion,” and they may not promote an “excessive government entanglement with religion.”

Religious conservatives have criticized those criteria, known as the Lemon test, which could be challenged in a case before the high court involving a 40-foot cross at a war memorial on public property in Maryland.

Nelson quoted the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who 25 years ago compared the Lemon test to “some ghoul in a late-night horror movie.” Since then, Nelson said, “the Lemon ghoul ... has stalked the lower courts, no longer just frightening little children but increasingly devouring religious expression in the public square.”

The dissents are an encouraging sign for potential Supreme Court action, said attorney Robert Tyler of the nonprofit Advocates for Faith and Freedom, who represents the Chino school board in the case. He said the board has not yet decided whether to seek review with the high court, but the judges’ criticism “puts us in a pretty strong position to be able to go forward.”

The suit challenging the prayers was filed by another nonprofit, the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Its lawyers could not be reached for comment.

Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000.

His beat includes state and federal courts in California, the Supreme Court and the State Bar. He has a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and is a member of the bar. Coverage has included the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the appointment of Rose Bird to the state Supreme Court and her removal by the voters, the death penalty in California and the battles over gay rights and same-sex marriage.